Page 42 of Craving Dahlia

“I’m going out.” I bite out the words, barely looking at him, feeling my muscles coil tightly. I know he doesn’t deserve my ire—that there’s nothing that points to him having been responsible for what happened to me, that the only way to know why he or my father didn’t come for me is to ask. But instead, I’ve been avoiding him, Dimitri dancing around the past and me stubbornly refusing to broach the questions that need to be asked. It’s not his fault I felt compelled to make Dahlia the offer that I did, either, but I need someone to blame, and my big brother, the one who suggested it in the first place, is right there.

“You should come to dinner,” Dimitri says evenly. “Sit down with your family. With your wife.”

“I don’t want to see her,” I growl, and Dimitri’s frown deepens.

“She’s your wife now, Alek?—”

“I feel trapped!” The words spill out, each one cut off sharply, startling me. It’s the most honest thing I’ve said to my brother since coming back, the first time I’ve let him see even the flicker of an emotion. The first time I’veallowedone. “With her here—I feel fucking boxed in. I need to get out. I need—” I feel a sick, tight feeling coiling in my stomach, panic prickling over my skin. That feeling of being trapped sets me off like nothing else, and right now it feels like this whole fucking family, everyone in this house, is conspiring to force me into a corner. I need to get out of here for a little while. I need to be away from all of them, to clear my head.

I stalk past him, my keys clutched so tightly in my hand that they bite into my skin. I’m almost to the door when I hear Dimitri’s icy voice behind me, full of disappointment and exhaustion.

“Don’t bring a woman back here, Alek. And for fuck’s sake, don’t get another one pregnant.”

“I have no fucking intention of that,” I snap, shoving the door open as I step out into the cool night air.

The door slams behind me, and I suck in a lungful of it, trying to calm myself. But anger is rioting through me, anger and betrayal and a feeling of loss that I’ve tried to bury deeply enough that it’ll never resurface, and the only thing that can help that is to go for a ride.

Somewhere that I can get a drink, and forget about all of this for a little while.

14

DAHLIA

Alek doesn’t come down for dinner. It’s just Evelyn, Dimitri, and I, enjoying a meal of braised red wine short ribs over blue cheese mashed potatoes with salad, and ordinarily that would be a perfect night. It’s not that I miss Alek’s presence, either, because I don’t. It’s that I haven’t been able to get him out of my head since this afternoon, and his absence at dinner only intensifies that.

I can still feel the sensation of that scar under my fingertips, like the others I felt on that one night we spent together. He pulled away like I burned him when I touched it, and I’m not naive enough to think that doesn’t mean anything.

He’s been through a lot. Evelyn’s words drift back into my head, and I bite my lip as I push my dinner around my plate. There’s something that I don’t know about my husband, something that I think makes him behave the way he does. But I don’t think I have a chance in hell of finding out what it is…at least not from him.

I haven’t seen him since I ran away from the stables. My stomach tightens, warmth blooming through me when I remember what I heard when I came upstairs this afternoon. Icouldn’t quite believe, when I stopped outside of his room, that I was hearing him touch himself. But then he groaned—that same sound he made when he came all over me in my bed—and I knew that was exactly what I was hearing.

I was soaked in an instant, hearing it, my body still throbbing with desire from our encounter outside, that sound only adding to it. I almost went back to my room and made myself come—and the only thing that stopped me was that I don’t want to think of him while I do.

Even if he’d never know, I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of being the reason for another one of my orgasms.

“You said Alek was gone for a long time, before he came home,” I blurt out, looking up from my plate. Evelyn and Dimitri both pause mid-sentence, looking over at me with confusion. “Where was he? Traveling?”

Evelyn frowns, her hands going still on her utensils. “I don’t know,” she says softly, before Dimitri interjects.

“I don’t know much, either,” he says slowly. “He wasn’t traveling. Something—happened. But,” he adds quickly, seeing the look on my face, “that’s not for me to talk about, Dahlia. If you want to know more, you’ll have to ask him. Unfortunately, I think you’re likely to get as much from him as I have, which is…nothing.” Dimitri blows out a sharp breath. “He’s not the same as he used to be. I’m sorry that things have gone the way they have.”

“It’s—” I trail off, unsure of what to say. I can’t sayit’s okay, because it’s not. None of this is okay. But it’s also not his or Evelyn’s fault.

“Things will get easier,” I say instead, wishing that I believed that. But I don’t—and they don’t get easier. Day after day, Alek and I try to dance around each other, barely speaking. We’ll run into each other in passing in the hall, or sit across from each other at a meal, and the air will be so tense that it feels likeit could be cut with a knife. We barely say a sentence’s worth of words to each other over the next week, but all the same, I can feel his presence constantly lingering. Neither of us seems to want to be alone with the other for long, and after what happened at the barn, I know why.

We might hate each other, but the memory of that one night is still strong, and it makes it hard for either of us to control ourselves if we’re close to one another. I don’t want to want him, but my body does, and I think it’s the same for him—even if he’d never admit it.

Friday night, to my surprise, he’s at the dinner table when I come down. I picked something nice to wear, not expecting him to be there, and I immediately regret the springy, yellow-flowered sundress that I chose when I walk in and his eyes rake over me.

I canfeelevery thought running through his head, and I know they’re all filthy. And worse, I can’t help wishing that I knew what they were.

It makes the festering hate growing in my chest even worse. And it makes me curious, too. Despite myself, I want to know what happened. I want to know why he’s like this.

His mouth presses together in a thin line as I sit down next to Evelyn, his hand flattening against his fork as he looks down at the bowl of tomato bisque that was served for the first course. He’s still not wearing his ring, which doesn’t come as a surprise. It makes me wish I’d taken mine off. Every morning, I think about doing it, and every morning I end up leaving the thin band on my finger. I don’t really understand why. It makes no sense, but whether out of sheer stubbornness or something else altogether, I can’t bring myself to take it off.

I pick at my food, knowing I need to eat more, but Alek sitting across from me makes it nearly impossible. I’ve lost a bitof weight, which isn’t ideal while I’m pregnant, and I know the doctor will tell me as much when I go for my next appointment.

“Not hungry?” he asks, when the main course of roasted chicken and lemon carrots is served, and I’m still only taking tiny bites. I look up, a bitter feeling tightening my throat.

---